The artist in the project of ‘Out-Layers – Seoul 2018′ at Platform-L. photo by Samuel An 2018

During the preparation of this art exhibition, I lost my beloved father in Seoul. At the moment, I almost gave up having this exhibition but, miraculously, the timing of installation and equipment rentals have worked out well with the kind helps of many – especially Sam An and Kazan Kang from datacook. Kazan’s technical support for data algorithm has been critical for my artwork. Also many thanks to my QUT supervisors: Dr. Jen Seevinck, Dr. Alice Payne and Dr. Jaz Choi. In the end, I was able to hold this solo art exhibition at the Platform-L Contemporary Art Center from 7th of Nov to 17th of Nov 2018 as a part of Platform-L Live Arts Program 2018. Perhaps dad was looking after me after all…

Art Exhibition by Younghui Kim: The Sense of Data – Seoul 2018

Here is the quickly printed postcard with the artwork, ‘Out-Layers – Seoul 2018‘ – screen version. I had to rush out to the printer during the exhibition as I had a very limited time to prepare. Fortunately, the art exhibition has gotten strong feedbacks in the sense of sharing my artistic view of data from the Seoul audience.

In the age of massive data where our action, decisions and opinions are digitally traced, hyper-connected and shared in many technologically developed societies, the artist questions about how our everyday lives are expressed and influenced through data. This series is composed of 3 artworks; two of them are in a set of a wearable and a screen projection piece of live data associated with Seoul.

Out-Layers – Seoul 2018
In the first set, ‘Out-Layers – Seoul 2018‘, the artist visualizes the live data of selfie-related texts in the public post of Selfie using the hashtag #셀카 in Instagram – ‘셀카’ is pronounced as ‘Selca’ and means ‘Selfie’ in Korean. The algorithm set in the datacook site looks for the Korean words that are associated with five kinds of emotions and thoughts exposed in the Korean selfies in social media, categrized based on thematic analysis; then visualizes into five colors of stripes: daily – green, travel – blue, emotions – yellow, appearance – pink, and promotion – orange. These bold graphic pattern projected in a large scale on the wall are built and updated with the live data along in parallel with the colourful lights embedded in the wearable version. Both patterns are inspired by Korean traditional color pattern called, ‘Sakdong’ and Hanbok image collars called, ‘Dong Jeong‘.

The set of artworks, ‘BreatheOut – Seoul 2018′ visualizes the live data of the air quality of Seoul – specifically the micro dust pollution levels in the district of the gallery is sited.

BreatheOut – Seoul 2018 by Kim Y. Air Quality Data Visualization at Platform-L (clear air in Gangnamgu, Seoul after the rain).

The air we breathe out unconsciously gets mixed up with the surrounding air (in Seoul this case), and we share air by breathing in and out. We are interacting with air dust by breathing in and out, and ‘BreatheOut – Seoul 2018‘ visualizes the interaction of our breathing out, blending with the live visualization of the current air dust quality. The artist relates this idea of data that influences our everyday lives by tracing, sharing and circulating. Also, the idea of sustainability is apparent with this artistic theme as this wearable, Pancho has been created with a zero-waste pattern; a pattern that does not create trimmed throwaways of the fabric.

The large screen is full of whimsical particles in the shape of circles all moving toward one direction. The artist visualized the air particles into small circles and refers them as, ‘air bubble’. These movements of air bubbles are intentionally designed simple but computationally randomized, which creates a meditative environment where one can stare at it for a while. The live data was filtered through an algorithm in the artwork and visualized into tiny moving air bubbles in different color stages based on the AQI (Air Quality Index) Calculator provided by airnow.gov. Each layer of colors represent PM10 (coarse particle matters) , and PM2.5 (finer particle matters) status and these air bubbles are joined with pink bubbles breathed out through the wearable. PM refers an air pollutant that is harmful for health when levels in air are high. Each layer of the air bubbles is displayed in one of three colours depending on the real-time data provided by the Seoul City Open Data API: green being healthy, orange being sensitive and light pink being unhealthy for some people.

The wearable also displays the color status of micro dust in LEDs embedded, and a breathing sensor is attached to the inner layer of the mask part. We breathe in and out the very same air; therefore, the wearer also participates with the live data visualization with her breathing.

BreatheOut – Seoul 2018 by Kim Y., micro dust – sensitive and dust -healthy with the wearable piece.The Screen Grab of BreatheOut – Seoul 2018 – with the unhealthy micro-dust air quality with the breathing out through the wearable.

As a part of her PhD research, “Artistic Exploration of Data Through Creative Practice“, Younghui begins to explore the meaning of outliers in data through her art practice and aims to expand the use of real-time data as art material for conceptual art practice through this series. It has been a long process of exploring data through an artistic approach for her already. Therefore, this artwork is the process, not a completion of work. In Seeking for Outliers, the artist first gathered her words that she posted on the walls of Facebook for ten years of her stay in Seoul – from Feb 2007 to Jan 2017. Apparently, the dataset was large which easily crashed the data analytic tools she played with.

A view of the exhibition, The Sense of Data at Platform-L Contempoary Art Center 2018

‘Seeking for Outliers’ has begun with the idea of searching for outliers in personal data of the artist. To trace her memories of thoughts, opinions, and actions for the ten years living in Seoul, she first gathered English words as she often posts on the wall in two languages. Then she displayed the words by the counts of the word usage into her artwork to seek for the words that reveal her thoughts based on her memory and experience.

Notably, the artist seeked for the words that were used only once or twice instead of many – such in hundreds. They might be insignificant in counts in data analysis but, these diverse words are far more exciting and significant as they might be a record of passing ephemeral thoughts. For instance, the most repeatedly used word, ‘Happy’ – 400 times, would appear larger in yellow but, it will have lesser significant, therefore, behaves lighter in weights. Its opacity is low and moves slow and floats like air.

Throught ‘Seeking for Outliers‘, Younghui tries to understand the outliers of her past with her own memories and experience and based on its revelation, she expects to continue to further practice with this concept of outliers in the close future. The video below is a clip where the artist reads word by word out loud during the exhibition.

This exhibition is a part of her research “Artistic Exploration of Data Through Creative Practice” and supported by Platform-L and QUT (Queensland University of Technology).

<The Sense of Data> series is the third data art series following series of<Weight of Data 2016-8> and <mood.cloud-Data as Art 2014>. In the age of Big Data where our action, decisions and opinions appear to be digitally traced and hyper-connected in many digitally saturated societies, the artist questions about how our everyday lives are expressed and influenced through data. In this series, artist visualizes the live data of selfies related emotions and thoughts exposed in social media into bold graphic pattern along with colourful lights embedded in wearable; visualizes through an algorithm that uses Seoul City’s Open Datasets combined with the sensor-collected data to let data breath through wearable; and plays with the idea of her personal outliers that are leftover or unnoticed. Through this series, the artist begins to explore outliers of data through her art practice and aims to expand the use of real-time data as art material for conceptual art practice.

Trading Live feeds that has been calculated in Kg of Sugar, Rice and Salt per 1 Bit Coin and/or Lite Coin

Except for sugarcubes, I had to purchase 1 Kg of raw rice and sea salt in Montreal. I didn’t bring the balance with me so, I bought each packaged in 1 Kg. The value of cryptocurrency has peaked over 2 years so I had to add another digit for the screen interface in Processing. The left photo above is the screen of the Sugar installation piece in 2018 and the right one is from the exhibition in 2016. It was expected but, surprised by the scale of increment.

Here students are exploring sewable soft electronic circuit, various sensor studies and elements of wearable design that is very much related current cultural interface. They are currently practicing with their dieas with sensors, Arduino and sketchbook. Their goal is how to make the wearer to act, feel and think.

As a part of her ongoing Data Art projects, she has been participating in DataCook project and the team is having their first workshop in Seoul this weekend (Aug 28th) for anyone who is interested in utilizing DataCook and apply to their interests and projects. Younghui is excited to meet other likely minded creative makers and start a community.

Media artist, Marie Younghui Kim is having her exploratory solo exhibition, WEIGHT OF DATA – Data, Commodities and Art at 6 – 8 pm coming Thurs, May 7th, 2016. She throws a question on what does data relation mean to you by following a real-time commodity trading data and displaying into light installations made of 1 Kg of Rice, Sugar and Salt – 3 edible commodities we eat everyday.

When you look up closely raw rice in your palm under light, solid grains shine through their opacity and texture. Same with sugar and salt, white grains are a bit rough but, shining through tiny, uneven shapes. Rice, Sugar, Salt – these three kind of white products are something we frequently consume and related deeply with our culture and economy.

The artist has chosen agricultural commodities as metaphors because rice, salt and sugar used to be traded as a currency in old days and caused wars in history. These valuable commodities are something you see in every kitchen counter in modern life. Unlike of mining commodities, mass productions of agriculture can be controlled and through mass production, their values are dropping. Also, these three white foods are avoided for their unhealthy addiction. These three commodities are all traded in weights.

Trading Live feeds that has been calculated in Kg of Sugar, Rice and Salt per 1 Bit Coin and/or Lite Coin

Being abundant, these commodities are very familiar to us but, they seem unfamiliar when they are represented in a circumstance where their values are displayed in weight in relation to other value in real-time data.

While working on art piece with the subject of Rice, Salt, Sugar, the artist felt that data is something in numbers and statistic to someone but, to the artist, the context of data itself is an artistic theme.

RICE by Younghui Kim, 2016 (1 Kg of Rice, Data) – The artwork is illuminating in yellow when value of rice compared to Bitcoin has been slightly increased in weight

RICE

In Korea, rice is more than just an edible product – it is a cultural brand and a sacred grain. ‘take a meal’ literally is being expressed as ‘eating rice’ in Korea.

In Japan and Korea and other Asian countries, tax , debt and salaries used to be paid in Rice Currency in history. In the state of South Carolina, Rice Currency was also used in order to collect tax in 1793. Such historical records shows that rice was a measurement of wealth and value in old days in some parts of world.

Sugar was a trading product that moved the world. During 16th – 19th Century, politicians and business men pursue to control the trade market and plantations of Sugar. Therefore, slaves markets were formed parallel to the plantations in Caribbean colonies. (relevant to the US civil war cause)

Salt is an essential element of life and saltiness is one of basic taste of human.

In many cultures, salt is used in sacred ceremonies. This small volcanic figure of 1 Kg of salt is not grand but, illuminates in a large mystery.

Salt is 8,000 years old commodity in some theory and it used to be highly valuable as gold in weight (6C., rock salt in ancient Ethiopia). ‘Salary’ means ‘salt’ in Latin and ancient Romans paid labor fee in salt.

Salt is sacred and practiced in important ceremonies in different cultures. In Korea, there is a custom of throwing salt to scare away ill lucks.

In this installation, salt has been sprinkled on the clear acrylic until it’s filed up. The artist wanted to display it in a sacred way for audience to stare in wonder.

Salt is essential for living but, it is being avoided for over consumption in modern life. Salt is not presented world trade markets as the price ranges are broad as there are cheap salts to expensive gourmet salts. Korean sea salt was price 3500-12800 KRW per 1Kg and online store, Chinese imported rock salt is priced $48-50 / 27 Metric Tons (=27,000 Kg).